We welcome back to the podcast Steve Stivers, President & CEO of the Ohio Chamber of Commerce. We spoke with him earlier, when he was just beginning his position with the Chamber. Now more than a year into the job, we get an update on what is happening in Ohio, and more detail on The Blueprint.

The critical issue from the episode – supporting the growth of Ohio’s businesses for 2023 and building the Ohio economy

• We look at Ohio’s growing business economy
• What is The Ohio Chamber of Commerce’s role in expanding new businesses or company expansions in our state?  
• How did Ohio fare in 2020-2022? Let's talk about INTEL and the Honda expansion.
• Will we see more industries and businesses coming to Ohio, or further expansions, in the new year?  
• Are there other companies in the pipeline that haven’t received as much attention but will also impact our growth?

What issues are expected to impact Ohio businesses in 2023?  

Most of this comes from training. Where should it begin? K-12, or on the job? Or both?

How do we solve the issues to keep the flow of companies and jobs coming into the state like:

• Supply chain disruptions affecting parts/inventory
• Transportation and logistics issues
• Inflation
• Need for continued financial support post-COVID

We would love to hear from you.

Give us your feedback, or suggest a topic, by leaving us a voice message.

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And of course, everything can be found on our website, Looking Forward Our Way.

Recorded in Studio C at 511 Studios. A production of Circle270Media Podcast Consultants.

Copyright 2024 Carol Ventresca and Brett Johnson

Steve: I tell people that local chambers of commerce define their communities. Join that first. Uh, if you still care and want to make Ohio more competitive and understand the value of policymakers across the street at the statehouse, please join the Ohio Chamber, too. But I you know, both local chambers and the state chamber are super important to our communities, their vitality and their future, because both of us define, uh, our communities. And so I'm excited to be at the Ohio Chamber, excited to be part of making Ohio more competitive.

Brett: Uh, we are looking forward our way. Coming to you from the Ohio Chamber of Commerce, located in downtown Columbus, Ohio. Hey, this is Brett Carol, and I would like to thank Steve Stivers, president and CEO of the Ohio Chamber of Commerce, for speaking with us today and hosting our podcast show in the Ohio Chamber of Commerce. Never been in the building.

Steve: Uh, welcome to the building. It used to be the Columbus Dispatch.

Brett: Exactly.

Steve: It's been historically renovated. It's beautiful, and we're happy to be your host today. It's great to be on your show.

Carol: Wonderful. Thank you so much. Um, we have had Mr. Um, Stivers here several times, starting when he was Congressman Stivers representing Ohio's 15th District in the US. House of Representatives. We've discussed a lot with him about veterans, but today we're going to talk about the Ohio Chamber in his role as president, CEO, and also the new Blueprint for Ohio's Economic Future. So thank you so much again for being with us. Let's start with an overview about your background and preparation, um, for your role. When the last time we talked to you? I just started this job.

Steve: Well, I've been here now 16 months. It's hard to believe I wasn't really looking for a job when the Ohio Chamber originally came calling. But, uh, the more I looked into the Ohio Chamber of Commerce, the more I realized that it would give me a chance to come home, be home with my wife and my ten year old son, my 13 year old daughter, and still be involved in policy and make a difference. That's what this Blueprint for Ohio's economic future is all about. It's a ten year agenda to try to make Ohio the best state in the country, to own or operate a business, uh, and make Ohioans, uh, whether they're owners or employees, more prosperous through that, uh, competitiveness. We're excited about that. I've also been very involved in the Supreme Court races this year because it's important to our business climate to have judges that will interpret the law and not try to make the law from the bench. And we've gotten involved in a ton of business issues and, uh, things that you might not think a Chamber of Commerce would get involved in. Things like child care, because if we want to get more people back to work, we need to fix childcare things like housing, because we're going to get all these new employees for intel and Honda battery plant. They got to have a place to live and we're a quarter million housing starts behind in Ohio. So, uh, it's been an amazing opportunity. I've, uh, got a chance every day to work with an amazing team here at the Ohio Chamber of Commerce and interact with policymakers across the street at the legislature with Governor Dwine and a lot of people that are trying to move Ohio forward. The jobs, Ohio folks that are bringing in intel and Honda, we, uh, get to work with them every day to grow Ohio's economy. It's a fun job. I get up every morning with a smile on my face and get to make a difference. I love it.

Speaker C: So your role in Congress really prepared you well for this. You don't quite have that, knowing that it's going to get passed, that the legislation is going to get passed, but it's still really taking care of all those issues that you were working with while you were in Washington.

Steve: It's a lot of the same issues I was working on when I was in Washington. And before that, Carol, I was a state senator. So those issues and the people that I knew when I was a state senator, um, and of course, it's also a great chance to build something and grow something. We've created, uh, an events business since I got here to serve our members better and grown revenues in a big way. Uh, when I got here, we were about $5 million in revenue. Today, 16 months later, we're $7.6 million in revenue. So we're really growing to serve our members better and growing with the state of Ohio. So it's an exciting time and I'm having a lot of fun.

Speaker C: Great.

Brett: Well, a lot of people, when they hear Chamber of Commerce think only of it's a lobbying organization to help business. But Chambers, I think, have evolved and they're playing a much larger role in our economic development. What, uh, do you envision the Chamber's role should be? And how does the Chamber strengthen Ohio's business climate?

Brett: It's such a different situation now, post COVID, that it looks like we have to look at any resource that we can to grow.

Steve: Absolutely.

Brett: And this is a great opportunity for the dei all of this stuff.

Steve: Absolutely. And frankly, this state has been growing too slowly for too long. And in the last ten years, Ohio grew, but it grew by a quarter of a percent a year. That's almost rounds to zero. But we just have to grow faster. I was in Austin, Texas this summer, and there's cranes everywhere in Austin. Austin's growing super fast. We don't need to grow that fast. They'll outgrow their infrastructure pretty fast. There's going to be a lot of pain and suffering for the people there as far as commute times and hassles, and, uh, we don't need to grow that fast. But I'd like to grow faster than we are. I know that a lot of cities in the Midwest are shrinking. Detroit, Chicago, um, and Columbus and Cincinnati are growing. Cleveland acronymstown and Canton and Toledo have all been shrinking a little bit. But we want to get those northern cities growing again and put a little gas on the fire that helps Columbus and Cincinnati grow even faster.

Brett: Right? Exactly.

Speaker C: So you just mentioned the Honda and intel with needless to say, that whole intel announcement was a huge surprise, but amazing opportunity here in town. Um, and also that we've only been growing a quarter of a percent for the past few years. What do you see coming around in 23 in the near future? And I realize we may not be able to talk about specific companies, but I'm sure there's some plans out there.

Brett: Yeah, well, if you take a look at, we need the diversification of those different, uh, speaking of the automobile, again, look at what we've done by relying on gas engine only. Maybe we better not do that in the future. Rely on all those four or five systems that we're just talking about because each one has a drain on something.

Steve: That's right, that's a great point. And you don't want to put all your eggs in any one basket. And I'm excited about the diversified economy we have in Ohio, and we just need to continue to invest in it and continue to grow it. And we need to get people to move to Ohio, uh, because we need workers.

Brett: Right. Well, and usually those big headlines come when intel comes in and decide on a new location, but I would assume there's going to be plenty of companies who have either moved in or expanded over the past few years. Let's give some headlight and highlights to them that maybe we just have not noticed and just haven't gotten the press.

Steve: Well, that's a great point, Brett. There will be over 100, um, suppliers to intel that are coming to, um, Ohio. Not all to Columbus or central Ohio. Some will come to go to Cleveland, some will go to Cincinnati, and some will go to other parts of the state. Um, intel has kind of a 100 miles rule that they want their suppliers within 100 miles. And, um, the good benefits, northern Ohio. Then if you make 100 miles, circle from Columbus. The good news is almost all of that space is in Ohio, right? So, uh, that's the great thing, that they're in central Ohio. But there have been a lot of other announcements. I talked about Amgen in Cincinnati. They're a, uh, biologics manufacturer. Um, and, uh, biosciences is growing. You're going to see a lot more of that in the future. And Amgen announced a giant Rd, uh, facility in Westchester, Ohio. That's exciting. Foxconn announced a battery plant in Lordstown, Ohio. GM announced a battery plant in Lordstown, Ohio. So we've seen a lot of, uh, announcements that didn't even get as much press. Um, the Ford plant in Alya got some press, and, uh, of course, Honda and intel got a ton of press. And they're big jobs and they deserve every bit of press they got. But you're right, we need to talk about all the wins. And there's a whole bunch more of those mediumsized employers that are bringing 100 to 300 jobs to Ohio, and we're excited to have them all.

Brett: It looks like this expansion is helping maybe the brain drain that we used to always talk about.

Steve: Well, we hope so. Um, right now there are 11.3 million Ohioans, but there's three 5 million Ohioans that grew up here, that live somewhere else right now, Brett. And if they all lived in Ohio, we'd be 15 million people in Ohio. We'd have enough workers for everything. If you're in the service industry, there'd be a third more business in the state. Uh, it would be a big, big deal. We'd have four, uh, more congressmen if we had three and a half million people. So, um, that's the kind of thing that, um, could really help, is to try to get some of those people to move back and try to close the back door of our college graduates and other folks that are leaving. So we import people to come to college here, whether they go to Ohio State or Miami or University of Cincinnati or Bowling Green or our, uh, private schools like Wittenburg and Case Western that are great, but then too many of them leave when they graduate. And when we have these new jobs that are coming, I think hopefully it will encourage more people to stay. The chamber supporting a, uh, bill called the Grow Ohio Act that Representative John Cross has. It'll bring more college, uh, students to Ohio from outside Ohio. But most importantly, it will connect college students while they're in Ohio with Ohio businesses, our members to do work based learning, internships, externships, those kind of things. And then finally, it will make sure that if those people choose to stay in Ohio after graduation, there's an incentive they get a little bit of a tax refund for about five years to get them to stay in Ohio. So, uh, we think that all three parts of that bill are important. Bringing more students to Ohio, especially of National Merit Scholars, and getting those students while they're here in college, connected with Ohio businesses and then giving them a financial incentive to stay in Ohio. So we're excited about things like that. And I think if we can shut the back door and keep people from leaving Ohio, we'll be much better, right?

Speaker C: And the whole intel project has a huge education training component with it. So we're hoping that, that, uh, and I think Ohio State is leading that charge with a lot of the other Ohio schools because it's really going to be an issue to, um, making sure that the curriculum meets the employers needs.

Speaker C: At one point in time, there was, um, maybe more flexibility that employers had, more training programs in house, that kind of thing. And that went by the wayside for whatever reasons. And really, recruitment and hiring, as you said, is one of the critical issues that are going on right now. So my question was going to be, um, what do you advise employers to do? But let's bring that back to the new blueprint for Ohio's future. Because part of that was to look at education here in the state and the workforce and the training of the workforce. So maybe you can give us a little bit of an overview of that.

Steve: Yeah, just a few things that, uh, we found in the blueprint and how the blueprint was put together is we partnered with Accenture, one of the world's biggest consulting firms. They looked at the economic competitiveness analysis of all 50 states. There's, uh, a lot of different data out there. CNBC has a lot of data, forbes has a lot of data. US. News has data. All of them published lists of who's the most competitive on various things. And we deconstructed all of those rankings and then try to figure out what policies would move us up. We, uh, rank about 38th on workforce right now. Um, and if you start I'm going to start at K 312 for a second. If you start at K through twelve, not um, enough. We have 660 school districts in Ohio, and, um, only one third of them have, uh, a program, um, for computer, um, science. And computer science is going to be really important to the future. Um, things like coding. If only a third of the school districts have a program, we are leaving way too many of our students behind. And then let's move beyond high school for a second. Move to community colleges. Um, we aren't getting our mid level and older workers, people that have been in the workforce more than ten years, reskilled fast enough. So technology changes, machines change, um, a lot of things change over time, and you've got to reskill those workers. That's where our community colleges, like Columbus State Central Technical College, um, Cleveland, uh, Chic up in Cleveland, all doing an amazing job of making those reskilling, uh, programs happen. But we've got to get more of our small employers connected with those so that they can get those employees upskilled. Uh, there's also, um, and it ties with it. Um, we have so many small businesses in Ohio that are on legacy equipment. They're on equipment that's more than 50 years old.

Speaker C: Wow.

Steve: And Indiana has a program that is a partial, um, grant program that encourages small businesses to invest in their equipment and get newer equipment so that a manufacturer could become an advanced manufacturer. Um, and that will help them have higher productivity, be able to get better technical specs for their customers, but it's going to cost them some money. And so the other thing it will then require, of course, is the employees to be able to run the new equipment, so they'll have to upskill. So, uh, combining two programs, one that Ohio has called Tech Credit, that will help pay for the upskilling of the employee. And then a program that Indiana has that creates a grant program, a competitive grant program, so that small businesses can apply for a grant to subsidize that new equipment, uh, will help encourage a lot of those small businesses to, uh, invest in that equipment. It'll make those small businesses more competitive and it'll keep those jobs in Ohio and keep those companies moving over the long range because they'll be more competitive with their peers. And, um, so we're trying to get one of the programs created and get more money in the other one in Ohio. We think that's really important. And of course, the last thing is four year degrees. Ohio has, um, a lower percent of our population with four year degrees than many of our peer states that we and especially than our aspiring states. When you look at states like Texas and Florida and Virginia, they have higher four year degrees than a percentage, ah, of population with four year degrees in Ohio. We need more people with four year degrees, but we need more people with, um, certifications and skills from community colleges. And then we need to make sure the folks that are coming out of K through twelve that might not be going on, get the basic skills they need to be ready. And again, it goes back to being, uh, tied in to the local economy. And um, every school district is required to have a business advisory council. And too many of those school districts pass that work off to the education service center at the county. So they don't have any connection with their local business community. They don't know what kind of employees they have in their local economy and the skills they need. Therefore they don't know what they're supposed to produce. It would be like, uh, a cereal manufacturer not knowing what their customers want to eat. It makes no sense. We've got to get our K through twelve schools and our higher education schools much more closely tied with the business community. And we think that's a role the Chamber of Commerce can help play, too.

Speaker C: That's one of the things that I've seen when I was working with so many employers is there are some incredible opportunities and programs that the state has created over the years, but they don't know about it. And so having a place where all of this information is filtered would be so much easier for the employers to find out. And hopefully then school systems are going to come along too.

Brett: Um, well, an added issue to the hiring situation is the need for skills training and finding qualified applicants. We've kind of touched on that. But has the Chamber found successful training programs that employers can utilize to increase their employees capabilities and improve their business capacity?

Steve: We have, and I, uh, talked about TechCred. That's one of the programs and it works very, very well. The problem with TechCred is it's only approved for certain industries. So, for example, we have a great shortage of truck drivers in Ohio, but a truck driving school is not approved as a TechCred program. So if you want to get uh, somebody, a commercial, uh, driver's license TechCred is not going to help them. So we need to expand the tech credit program or come up with other programs, especially for those critical shortages in Ohio. There's, uh, also been legislation like Senate Bill 166, which went into effect last year, the Student Pathways for Career Success Grant Program, that creates a financial incentive for businesses to provide that work based learning that I talked about already that is so critically important, especially for technical skills. And a bill we're working on, I already talked about is the Grow, Ohio program that will help make sure that, um, we get more out of state National Merit Scholars in Ohio schools. It will again tie those work based learning experiences to Ohio college students and finally give an incentive for those students to stay in Ohio. We think some of those things will, uh, really help move us forward. And many of them are mentioned in the Blueprint for Ohio's Economic Future.

Brett: You'd mentioned earlier, too, in the Kurds, to need to get more of those four year degrees from colleges in two years. Find too, that's an important part. Too how can we address that with the cost of getting a four year degree?

Speaker C: Brian and I think with higher education, the biggest confusion that students have, at least when I was working in higher ed, is they see that degree as the dual to end all, and that's the end of their learning. And having employers working with their employees towards continued not just a degree, but continued upskilling.

Steve: Um, carol we all have to learn to be lifelong learners, because the world is changing at a much faster pace today than when my dad was in the workplace 40 years ago. M, um, it's so fast, the pace of change, that if we stop learning, we make ourselves uncompetitive and we'll be out of a job, we'll be unemployed. So all of us need to continue to be lifelong learners in the skills that apply to work, but also many of those skills can apply at home or our health or our relationships. So we can be lifelong learners in many ways.

Speaker C: And showing children that I'm a lifelong learner as an adult, you're going to be a lifelong learner. And mentoring your kids through that change in attitude towards what education is going to give. And again, it's not just getting a fouryear degree. There are reasons and places and times when it's appropriate for a young person. Um, but there's nothing that says that you can't start out doing other things, go back for a four year degree, go back and do other things and really see it as, um, a progression as opposed to a final deal.

Steve: Well, that's a really important point, Carol. I was talking with the Society of Human Resources Professional sherm and, um, most employers are moving from degree requirements to skill requirements. They don't care whether you have a degree on your wall, they want to know what you know, not what degree you have. And so skills has become the, uh, new requirement, not degrees, which is definitely.

Speaker C: Going to help some of our, um, applicant pool who have had, uh, issues and difficulties finding employment. Because an older adult may have 20 or 25 years of great experience and wonderful skills, but they don't have a bachelor's degree. So they get popped out in the applicant tracking systems right away.

Steve: And I think a lot of the, um, artificial intelligence models are now looking for those skills as opposed to just requiring a degree. So hopefully that will continue. But that's the new buzz among the Society of Human Resource Professionals, is they want to focus on skills, not degrees.

Speaker C: Right? Um, so one of the other issues that, uh, the blueprint for Ohio's Economic Future talks about is infrastructure. If you can't get people to their job, there, um, are issues. Um, we couldn't get our goods and inventory because of problems in, um, the logistics and the supply chains and the transportation and not enough drivers. Tell us a little bit about what the blueprint found on infrastructure issues.

Speaker C: With your membership. Are they talking about the issues of bringing folks back into their offices? Has that gone well, gone smoothly, or is that contributing to the problem of retaining staff?

Speaker C: I'm sort of stretching the, um, term for infrastructure. As you said, it's not just roads, it's also broadband. I almost want to say that that caregiving issue is almost becoming an infrastructure issue, too. It's the infrastructure of their home. Um, and I know the report talked.

Steve: About that in the blueprint. We talk about childcare, and there's childcare deserts all around the state of Ohio, where even if you have the money and want to pay. You can't find a child care provider. And, um, even when you, uh, have providers, the amount people pay in Ohio is 103% of what they pay for rent to get childcare. Uh, in states, some of our competitive states we compete against in the South, South Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi, North Carolina, some states pay as low as 60% of rent. And rent in Mississippi isn't even that high. So, uh, they are figuring out how to get more childcare for less cost. Ohio has very strict licensure requirements. That's been a barrier to entry for entrepreneurs that would like to maybe become a childcare in their home. If you want to do that, it can cost you as much as 50 or $100,000, um, to retrofit your home to become a childcare facility. That's a lot of money. You have to take on a lot of kids to make that payback. And it's been a huge barrier to getting those, um, daycare deserts, childcare deserts, uh, to become oasis. So we've got some work to do. We want to make sure we get more people to be willing to provide child care. And by doing that, one of the ways to do that is to reduce the administrative and regulatory burdens to doing that. We don't want to take away any regulation for health and safety, but we think there are some things we can do to ease that burden to encourage more supply.

Speaker C: Have any members talked about the possibility of opening childcare centers on location?

Brett: Well, companies were provided government funding during the pandemic to maintain growth. We're now a couple of years out of us experiencing that influx of money. How it helped. But now I guess I want to take a look at do we need to revisit? How did, are you hearing from your members? It was a help, but do we do it again? It was a mixed bag.

Brett: I mean, I could see when I accepted the two PPPs that I got, I was totally under the impression, I'm going to pay this back. I'm gonna have to. It was just fine. I accepted it and did it. I could see where get the money, but your 0% interest, whatever, just to help you get going, that's fine. But you're not going to pocket it to help out.

Steve: Yeah, and I think that, um, the PPP loans were a great success, but a lot of the free money that we gave away did start to lead to inflation. We need to recognize that, and we got to get inflation under control in this country. So I'm not sure that another round of those type of programs is necessary right now, because America is open for business. Ohio is open for business. Everything hasn't come back to exactly where it was prepandemic. But a lot of the businesses we talked to in the manufacturing sector, other areas, have a backlog of orders right now. I mean, the economy is still pretty good, obviously, with supply chain and inflation, costs are getting a little out of control. When you drive through a Wendy's that used to cost $10 to get a double stack and a chicken sandwich, and now it costs $21, it takes 20.

Brett: Minutes versus ten minutes sandwich meal and.

Steve: A double stack and eliminate, I was like, $21. Did you get that right? That's how bad inflation is. Um, but we've got to get that under control, and I think we will.

Speaker C: One of the things that, uh, when you were talking about changing regulation, the one that I loved the most was for restaurants to have the doors, the outdoor dining. So you find all of these chairs and tables literally on the sidewalk. There are some ways that we could do this. And it's not painful to help people for small businesses.

Steve: Absolutely. And I think we all need to come together and we need to think about where we even individually buy things and support our local businesses. Because small business and local business is really important. And, um, my wife and I get a lot more to go food than we used to. Um, we occasionally would do a drive through. Now we go to restaurants to gettogo food. Um, and it's just our lifestyle changed and we don't go out to eat. We bring the food to us and eat at home.

Speaker C: Right.

Steve: But that still supports a local restaurant. Sure. When I get to go food, I tip. Now, I didn't used to do a lot of tipping when I don't think many of us used to tip when we get to go food. Now I tip just like, as if I was staying in, because I know they still need to get a staff. And I tip even if I'm walking out the door with the food.

Speaker C: Right. One of the, um, items that I was hoping that we could talk a little bit about is looking at what challenges we think are coming up again. That blueprint has really honed in on some of those. What are the other areas that the blueprint pulled together for, um, the chamber?

Steve: Well, there's really six areas that we need to focus on. And I talked about the workforce and education a little bit. I won't hit that again. Uh, another is the sense of place. Uh, and we need to make sure that people move to places. They don't just go someplace to work, they want to live in a community. And when you think about the natural assets Ohio has, uh, we've got the lake, but we don't really utilize the lake. If you're sitting on the shore of Lake Erie, um, you'd think you were buying an ocean. Ohio doesn't have oceans, but you're sitting on the lake shore of Lake Erie, you would never know it. We, uh, need to create access points to Lake Erie. But not just access points for, like, a park, but some place where you can go and create economic activity. You can do some shopping, you can go out to eat, you can stay at a hotel. There something that's a public private partnership right on the lake that is an opportunity for somebody to really create economic value and have access to our natural amenities, um, would make a ton of sense. And we need to invest in those with public private partnerships. We're excited about that. Uh, taxes and costs, obviously, are always a concern. Ohio has 848 taxing jurisdictions at the municipal level, and, uh, that's more than any state but Pennsylvania. So we're 49th one from the bottom on that. And, uh, in Pennsylvania, they have one definition of income. We have 848 definitions of municipal income. That's a problem. We need to homogenize that and create one definition for what municipal income is. We uh, all want to make sure we pay for the services that cities need, like police and fire that keep our safety, or trash and water all the things that keep us living well. But we also want to keep Ohio competitive. So we've got to figure out how to centralize administration of things like the municipal tax system, make it more efficient, figure out if there's a way to take some of the variability of the rate off the top city. Parma Heights charges 3% in addition to the 3% state tax. So they basically charge as much as the state does on income tax. If we could figure out how to bring that down a little bit and give them some other opportunities, we uh, think that would make a ton of sense.

Speaker C: So that means m municipal tax is not school tax.

Steve: No, that's not even school and school tax is even on top of that. So uh, some school districts charge an uh, income tax in addition to the property tax. I, uh, talked about business friendliness that's really regulation Ohio over regulates, uh, unfortunately, and sometimes it's not around health and safety. And when you over regulate, you create barriers to entry and you might help the people who are currently working in that sector, but you don't serve the greater population, the customers and the marketplace very well. So we need to look at our regulatory system in Ohio. There's an effort, uh, that's already underway called cut red tape Ohio. You can go to Cut Red Tape Ohio. Just Google that and you'll go to a website. If there's a regulation you know of that's causing a problem for your business, you can report that regulation and the agency in charge is required to investigate your claim and report back to the legislature on it. So anybody that wants to participate, if they think there's a regulation that's hurting their business, go to Cut Red Tape Ohio and enter the information. Interesting, um, it'll have to be looked at.

Speaker C: Is there something that has been um, more predominant that has come up through that?

Brett: Good. We always ask our guests, uh, if they have any last words of wisdom. Mr. Stylers, what other suggestions or advice do you have for our listeners and business owners that you already haven't given?

Brett: Good, good.

Speaker C: And I think, too, that the notion of, particularly for business owners chambers have, um, a wonderful role in our Ohio economy. And, uh, I hope that, uh, the business owners understand that it can be helpful. It's not just an organization that's going to take your money and then go and have lunch with a legislature. It's really something, a group that's going to help look at what the issues are from the Ohio Chamber, from the large city chambers, from your local community chamber. Take a look and see the value of that.

Steve: Absolutely, Carol. I tell people that local chambers of commerce define their communities. Join that first. Uh, if you still care and want to make Ohio more competitive and understand the value of policymakers across the street at the statehouse, please join the Ohio Chamber too. But both local chambers and the state chamber are super important to our communities, their vitality and their future because both of us define, uh, our communities. And so I'm excited to be at the Ohio Chamber, excited to be part of making Ohio more competitive. Our mission is to aggressively champion free enterprise and economic competitiveness for the benefit of all Ohioans. And I'm excited about that mission. I wake up every morning trying to make sure we accomplish that mission wonderful.

Speaker C: Mr. Stivers, thank you so much for joining us. This is Steve Stivers, who's President CEO of the Ohio Chamber of Commerce, and um, for sharing his expertise with us today. Listeners, thank you for joining us. And do not forget to check our show notes for contact information and resources on our website at uh, looking forward our way.com. We're looking forward to hearing your feedback on this and all of our podcast episodes. Thank you again.